UNITE HERE Local 100 celebrates Juneteenth! June 19, 1865, marks the date in which the news of emancipation reached the last group of enslaved individuals. We acknowledge that nobody is free until everybody is free. Therefore, UNITE HERE Local 100 stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and recognize that we must continue to fight until we are all free!
UNITE HERE applauds today’s Supreme Court decision preventing the Trump administration from shutting down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects hundreds of thousands of individuals who came to the United States as children. Under DACA, 800,000 immigrants have received work authorizations, including many hospitality workers and their families.
“DACA represents an opportunity for people like me to fulfill our dreams: to live, work, study, and raise our children in the United States—our home—without the fear of deportation,” said a Celica Valdez, housekeeper in Monterey, CA and President of UNITE HERE Local 483, “This is a victory that was one only after years of fighting alongside fellow immigrants, DACA recipients, and my union family.”
It is also important to recognize in this time of national uprising against racial injustice that Black undocumented immigrants face increased incidents of police brutality and are more likely to be deported. Protecting DACA is one way to protect these individuals and all immigrants, but there is still work to be done.
Our nation must still achieve legalization with a path to citizenship for all Dreamers as well as those with Temporary Protected Status, Deferred Enforced Departure, and those who are undocumented. Last year, Congress passed the Dream and Promise Act, and now the Senate must take it up and pass permanent protections for immigrants.
So, we celebrate a week of very positive Supreme Court decisions that benefit our immigrant and LGBTQ siblings. And while this has been a week of victory, there remains a racist and anti-immigrant administration in the White House. UNITE HERE remains as committed as ever to organize to defeat Trump at the ballot box this November. Sí se puede.
March 2020: A week or two after the stay at home orders, it became clear that black and brown workers filled most of the “essential” jobs that we all depend on and cannot “stay at home.”
Why: our unfair economic and education systems pushed many towards these low paying service jobs, and away from “work from home” jobs.
April 2020: After a month of covid-19 the country saw numbers proving that black Americans are more vulnerable, and becoming sick and dying more than whites.
Why: Because our health system leaves blacks with much higher rates of underlying conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, but less access to good health insurance and medical care.
May 2020: And after 10 weeks, we faced again the only thing that the covid19 emergency did not stop; the casual brutality that our “justice system” uses to kill black women and men.
And Yes! Three weeks of rebellion in US streets and around the world gave hope that people together can begin to break the grip of racism that chokes this country, and to work toward real change … when in June 2020 Rayshard Brooks is shot twice in the back while running from a police officer, and killed.
Now UNITE HERE Local 100 pledges to do whatever we can as a Union of hospitality workers to fight for the change needed in all these systems. Beginning within our own Local Union staff and all of our Union shops, working with black and brown members to fight for economic and racial justice. This includes all contract negotiations and regular Union representation work.
Next the work continues with UNITE HERE International Union to support action to eliminate barriers for members to grow as leaders in our own Union.
And finally, supporting campaigns for criminal justice and police reform and equal opportunity in all economic, health and education systems, together with our allies in New Jersey, New York and around the country.
We ask all Local 100 members to tell us your ideas, and to challenge us to act and to win the fight against racial injustice.
Yes We Can! Si Se Puede!